Chương 2
His suit looked older.
Not cheap.
Just lived in.
His dark hair was slightly messy, as if he had run his hand through it too many times.
“I’m sorry,” Mara said.
The man glanced toward Daniel.
Then toward Claire.
“Don’t react.”
That immediately made Mara suspicious.
“Who are you?”
“Evan Reed.”
The name meant nothing.
The fact that he had answered without hesitation meant something.
“How do you know me?”
“I don’t.”
“That’s not a good answer.”
“No,” he said.
“It isn’t.”
There was something uncomfortable about how calm he was.
Everyone else in the room was performing an emotion.
Anger.
Shock.
Embarrassment.
Concern.
Evan looked like someone trying not to reveal he had already seen the next move in a game.
“I heard what Daniel said,” he whispered.
“Everyone heard.”
“No.”
His eyes stayed on the microphone still sitting on the table.
“Everyone heard the accusation.”
Mara felt a small chill move through her.
“What’s the difference?”
Evan hesitated.
It was the first crack in his composure.
“The difference is that the documents he mentioned are real.”
Her stomach dropped.
For one second, she thought she had been wrong.
Then he continued.
“They’re just not yours.”
The noise of the ballroom seemed to fade.
Mara looked at him carefully.
“What does that mean?”
“It means Daniel is using records connected to an account that was accessed after your breakup.”
“How would you know that?”
Evan looked away.
A waiter passed between them carrying empty glasses.
For several seconds, neither of them spoke.
“I work in forensic accounting,” he finally said.
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the part I can give you here.”
Mara almost laughed.
Almost.
The entire night had become a collection of people giving her partial truths and expecting gratitude.
“Why are you helping me?”
“I’m not sure I am.”
“That’s comforting.”
“I’m saying you should be careful.”
Daniel’s voice rose across the room.
“Mara, if you have something to say, now would be the time.”
Every face turned back toward her.
She hated that she wanted to disappear.
She hated more that part of her still wanted Daniel to look afraid.
She walked toward the center of the ballroom because staying still had become impossible.
The crowd opened slowly.
Not kindly.
Just enough.
Daniel watched her approach.
Claire remained beside him, holding her bouquet with both hands.
“You knew,” Mara said to Claire.
Claire blinked.
“I didn’t.”
“Then why did you look like you were waiting for this?”
Claire’s mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
Daniel answered for her.
“Don’t drag her into your problems.”
Mara looked at him.
“That’s interesting.”
“What?”
“You’ve spent ten minutes telling everyone I’m dishonest, but somehow I’m the one causing problems.”
His face hardened.
The room felt smaller.
Daniel had always been good at controlling rooms.
He understood where people looked.
When they got uncomfortable.
When they wanted someone to end the conversation.
Mara had once admired that about him.
Now it frightened her.
“I gave you everything,” Daniel said quietly.
The sentence was meant only for her.
Not the crowd.
Not the guests.
Her.
And that was when Mara noticed something she had missed earlier.
His left hand.
The wedding ring on it was new.
But the small scar near his thumb was old.
A scar she had seen every day for years.
A scar from the night they signed the first lease together.
The night he promised they were building a life.
She remembered him dropping the pen.
Laughing.
Saying he was terrible with anything involving paperwork.
The memory arrived so suddenly it almost knocked the anger out of her.
Almost.
“You always say that,” she whispered.
Daniel’s expression changed.
“What?”
“You always say you gave me everything.”
She looked around the room.
“At some point, I started wondering why you needed to remind me so often.”
Nobody moved.
Then Claire stepped forward.
“Daniel.”
It was the first time she had spoken his name all night.
Not lovingly.
Not proudly.
Like a warning.
Daniel turned toward her.
And for the first time, Mara saw fear pass between them.
Only for a second.
But it was there.
Evan appeared at Mara’s side again.
His voice was low.
“The account he mentioned.”
Mara looked at him.
“What about it?”
“I need to know if you ever gave Daniel access after the breakup.”
“No.”
The answer came immediately.
Then slower.
“No.”
Evan watched her face.
“Are you sure?”
Mara felt something cold settle inside her.
Because suddenly she was not thinking about Daniel embarrassing her at a wedding.
She was thinking about the weeks before the breakup.
The conversations she had forgotten.
The moments she had dismissed.
The password change notification she ignored because she assumed it was spam.
The email she deleted without opening because it came during the worst week of her life.
Evan reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his phone.
“I saw your name in a file three days ago.”
Mara stared at the screen he did not yet show her.
“What file?”
Evan looked toward Daniel.
Then Claire.
Then back at Mara.
“The kind that explains why someone needed you to look guilty before anyone asked questions.”
And before Mara could answer, Daniel’s phone lit up on the table beside him.
The message preview appeared for just long enough for her to see four words.
They found the accountant.
The Evidence Hidden Beneath Ordinary Days Would Change Everything They Thought They Knew About Each Other
The envelope was already open when Daniel Mercer found it on his kitchen table, and the first thing he noticed was not the name written across the front but the coffee stain covering the corner where someone had held it with a shaking hand.
He had been gone for twenty minutes.
May you like
That was the part that bothered him most.
Twenty minutes was too short for a stranger to break in, too long for a mistake, and exactly enough time for someone who knew his habits to enter the apartment, leave the envelope, and disappear.
